


Charlatan

by LovelyLogic



Category: Alias Grace (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 00:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLogic/pseuds/LovelyLogic
Summary: Fifteen years is a long time to be alone with your thoughts. Grace's keep straying to a certain beloved peddler.





	1. Chapter 1

Grace had not been raised a fool.

There were things she knew—the sting of lye as she scoured crimson from soiled bedsheets, the clap of iron bars slammed like the percussive bang of a drum; the leer and lurid fingers of the wardens who escorted her to the governor's home. These were constants, sure as the sun's rising or the cruel wind that whipped the flesh beneath her prison gown.

She knew Madame Quinnell and the spiritualists gathered for seances, claimed spirits crawled the walls in the parlor. They always asked for tea and cakes after, famished from the exertion of "holy divination."

She knew she had loved Mary Whitney...biblically.

What Grace could not have known was that same depth of aching, exquisite despair could apply to any man, much less one she'd labeled a charlatan.

It snuck up on her much the way her ire toward Nancy had, slithering around her neck like the snakes she so often dreamed of quilting.

_"I should like you to come with me. I shall be back in a few days for your answer, and for both of our sakes I hope it is yes."_

The gravity of it had not struck her then.

True, McDermott was horrid and Nancy had become increasingly ill-tempered. But she was making a handsome sum and Mr. Kinnear was liberal, even bought her a new house dress after she muddied the last one milking cows.

Whether she got along with them—that is, whether Nancy's obscene giggling and Kinnear's thrumming moans through the wall churned the meager dinner in her stomach—was inconsequential.

Still, she could not banish the dread that surged at Jeremiah's words nor the urgency in his eyes. With his arrival came the first levity in a year, his roguish smile and hand on her shoulder like menthol smoothed over cracked palms.

_"Hello, Grace."_

He'd read her fortune before: _"You shall cross water three times and face great peril, but all will be well in the end."_

Grace dismissed the words, laughed with Mary Whitney about the peddler's attempt to steal their hearts along with what little spending money they had.

But his sudden appearance at the Kinnear residence brought a tear to her eye, lent the slightest bit of credibility to Madame Quinnell's fascination with the occult. For if it was not God who brought the man to her, then perhaps a spirit.

_You shall marry Jeremiah!_

The pair were possessed by the ghost of pleasant times past—listening to his tales of the big city, of the interesting folks he'd seen about the countryside, of strange sideshows and bearded women.

_"Are you happy here?"_

She paused. What need did she have of happy? It was a state reserved for ladies plied with petit fours and adorned in hand-stitched lace, for gentlemen who traveled the world in splendid fashion.

Happy was a dangerous notion, best left to those who could afford to entertain it. She told Jeremiah as much.

He sipped from his glass, fixed her with a look far too earnest for a man who spent his days tricking fools. Even now, when years had faded the day's clarity and the veranda's blooms were no longer a crisp tableau in her mind, Grace would never forget the laden words that fell from his lips.

_"Come away with me."_

Fifteen sorrowful years later, she wondered if he still meant them.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello, Grace."

The shock of his arrival at the governor's home bade her faint, so that her apron was smeared with crumbs and green buttercream when she awoke. Doctor Jordan hovered over her, crowded her vision with worried baby blues and feather-light touches to her temple.

She looked past him to the wily, astute apparition with eyes the color of summer earth. How unkind, Grace thought, that a spirit should take the form of someone so familiar. It stood tall, gaze glittering with preternatural amusement, recognition and concern.

The prospect of it constricted her lungs, sucked what little breath had returned from her chest. Perhaps if she called out to it, the apparition would reveal its true self. At least that's how she was told spirits were banished.

With this in mind she called out. "Jere—"

A hand flew to his nose to scratch an invisible itch, and Grace nearly cried out at the slight smile that curled his lips. This was no apparition, but by some divine provenance the peddler she considered a beloved friend.

"Doctor Jerome DuPont, at your service," he said, pulling her gently up by her forearms.

Grace wrestled the grin into a polite nod, acutely aware of the current assembly. Not least of them was Doctor Jordan, whose gaze flicked between them with something resembling avarice. Jeremiah released her, fingers leaving slight trails that cooled with the chilly parlor air.

"I am a neuro-hypnotist. Do you know what that is?"

She shook her head, sure words would fail her. From the fine-tailored suit of wool and brocaded satin, it appeared he had made good on his plan to become a traveling mesmerist. For all the nostalgia and goodwill his presence brought, she could not dispell the giddy fright that rose as he gazed at her.

Grace had not been raised a fool.

T'was not merely relief in her heart as Jeremiah stood before her, a new-minted man. It was the same trembling warmth that consumed her as she lied beside Mary a lifetime ago; it was the urge to embrace him, to rebuke him for not making good on his promise to return.

It was the foreign desire to surrender herself the way Nancy so frequently did for Mr. Kinnear.

It was the first tenous thread of affection.

"Well, it is my job to help you recover your memories through hypnosis—that is, through lucid dreaming and guided suggestion. With Doctor Jordan's approval, of course."

Grace wondered whether she was dreaming currently. Doctor Jordan's reply was less than gracious, but he conceded to allow an attempt should she be unable to recall anything of the murders. With that her day at the governor's mansion was cut short, duties assumed by Clarrie for the remainder of the afternoon.

Doctor Jordan took hold of her arm to guide her back to the prison, but not before she turned to see the brief, beaming smile that lit Jeremiah's face; her breath hitched at the sentiment written so plainly on it.

_"All will be well in the end."_


	3. Chapter 3

He came next to visit her on a cold, slate grey morning. At his behest (backed by the governor's approval), the corridor was cleared of all but one warden who stood at the very end, far out of earshot. 

Grace perched at the edge of her cot, unsure of what to do with her hands. Unlike her sessions with Doctor Jordan, there was no sewing work to keep her preoccupied, so she took to smoothing the hem of her apron.

This anxious energy was new to her, the pent up nature of their speech like a constricting band around her heart.

"Doctor DuPont."

"Grace." He took a seat in front of the cell; the obscuring bars did little to hide his clever smirk.

She could hardly return it, though whether for nerves or fear she did not know. It still seemed too terrible a coincidence, that the object of her recent mulling would materialize, and at such a crucial moment.

"Does Doctor Jordan know you've come to visit?" she asked, if only to slow the thumping in her chest at the prospect of honest dialogue.

Doctor Jordan was kind enough, but she did not trust him. He was too ulterior, pupils dilating when she spoke of undressing for bed or of rebuking the advances of other men. His breath sped when she loosed her hair from its knot; his patience waned when she tried to describe the Parkinson house and the magic once within it.

But Jeremiah remembered, knew it just as well if not better than she did.

"What Doctor Jordan does not know will not hurt him," came the reply, smoother than the honeyed wine she and Mary made during summers at the Parkinsons.

In that desolate hall she could hear his breathing, watched as his chest filled with air. Grace shuddered, so badly wanting to press her hand against it. Fifteen years she had been a resident of Kingston penitentiary—no more had it felt a prison than right this moment.

"Will it hurt me, Jeremiah?"

The question bore asking.

He was a wily peddler with a silver tongue and snake oil slicked across his lips. Whatever he had become in the years since her incarceration, it was not genuine—could not be, just as the slight hurt on his face must be false. For if it were true, it belied something far too painful to unearth.

"I did not come to quarrel with you, Grace," Jeremiah said, hands at his shoulders in a placating gesture. His voice dropped considerably so it was hardly above a whisper.

"Then for what?" she hissed, fear rising.

The words poured from her mouth, the product of silent conversations held with an imaginary version of the man before her. "You did not come at all these fifteen past and I cannot fathom why it should occur to you now."

He leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees so that she could reach out and touch his face if she were imprudent enough.

"Because I care for you, surely that must be obvious," Grace looked up from the frayed apron edge she was worrying. There was no beguiling in his eyes, only relief and burgeoning fear as some unsaid truth passed between them.

He took a deep breath and continued. "That I did not come to visit you has been my greatest regret, second only to the fact you did not say yes to me all those years ago."

"You would not marry me! For all your sweet words and posturing, you refused, Jeremiah. What assurance did I have that you would not desert me as soon as we crossed the border?"

Presently, it seemed silly to expect he would have—or that a mere ring should have prevented her escape from that horrible manor. He invited her to transcend that trite arrangement, become something exotic as they traveled cities and plied their theatrical wares amongst the wealthy.

She knew that now, but it did little to dispell the sting she felt that day.

He stiffened, adjusted the knot of his tie as if the mere action would produce an answer. When he finally looked up, she glimpsed the depth of his guilt, of shame buried beneath clever remarks and gilted buttons. Though handsome as ever, the wisps of grey at his temples and deep lines on his brow betrayed the burden of worry and age.

"I am not the farmstead type—after all these years you must realize that, Grace. You were asking me for a house built by my hand, for acres and livestock and children born by the hearth. But in you I saw a partner, a woman not bound by those trite desires."

Grace found her voice, raspy and unsure as tears threatened to choke it.

"So you deigned to leave me instead? Jeremiah, I—" She left off here, tamped down a sob as she remembered the week before McDermott roped her into the murders, the days she spent peering down that lone dirt road in hopes she would spy his smile and many valises. "I waited for you to return. Everyday I kept a weather eye on the horizon and you never came!"

He reached a hand out to the bar, his whole being pleading with her. Grace desperately wished for a vase of flowers, a needle and thread—anything to busy her hands with. The warden would not see them, but her traitor heart could not withstand this last test. Tentatively she pressed her fingers to the bar, slid them over his.

"And every day I _dreamed_ of you, Grace! I had not known the situation had grown so wicked, so I took a job in Alberta. When I returned to the Kinnear estate for your final answer, I found no one but the neighbor boy who pined after you. He told me everything and I fled."

Jeremiah lowered his head to her pale, slender fingers, ghosted his lips over the tips of them. Her heartbeat galloped, threatening to flee her chest if he persisted much longer. Luckily he resumed before it could.

"I could not believe it, that you would stoop to something so base as murder. But I had nothing to aid your plight, no money to send for better accommodations. I crossed into the States, learned the ways of mesmerism and established a reputation amongst the eccentrics in the North—so that when I came back..."

"You had credibility as Doctor DuPont," Grace finished, tears falling freely.

Jeremiah nodded, touched his lips to her hand again. It conjured wicked thoughts, the kind she believed herself incapable of after Mary's death.

"I couldn't risk a return before my reputation preceded me," he said, knuckles white as he gripped the bars tighter. "But don't for an instant believe a day went by without my thinking of you, Grace."

Her heart swelled with the weight of his confession, of her new love for him. Still, it did not answer the question of what he intended to do.

"Do you believe I did it, Jeremiah? That I killed poor Nancy and shot Kinnear dead?"

He peered at her, warm brown eyes sifting her features for some nugget of truth. There was silence as he tugged at his beard, mulled the question.

Then: "I cannot rightfully say that I know—or that I care to. I should've insisted on your departure, not deserted you when you most needed a companion. For all that came after, I blame myself for not keeping you at my side."

"And if I am set free?" she ventured, hope warming her chest for the first time in years. Sheepishly, she caressed his fingers beneath hers. "Will you keep me at your side then?"

Jeremiah chuckled—a low, heartwarming thing. He leaned away from the bars, fishing in his pocket before producing a hammered silver band. Grace clapped a hand over her mouth, stifled the shriek of disbelief as he slipped it onto her finger through the bars.

"My life is not tranquil. I move from place to place, spend my nights in wealthy parlors prophesying ghosts—I don't know how to sit still if I tried. But I would be a fool not to ask you once more. So, Grace Marks, will you—"

"Yes."

It was a week's more questioning with Doctor Jordan before he finally reliquinshed to Jeremiah, and another three after her hypnosis in the parlor before the governor's plea to pardon received a response from the Ottowa high courts. Then, four more days until the wardens declared her a free woman.

That one month's anticipation outstripped her entire fifteen year sentence. On release day she was given a navy high-neck smock with an embroidered bloom on the breast, then sent by carriage to the wharfs. All the while her stomach tossed with unfavorable scenarios, of being left alone with naught but a head full of pretty promises.

But as she spied him on the dock, brown curls slicked back and valises in-hand, Grace ceded to the ray of hope in her chest. And as Jeremiah slipped the ring onto her finger, kissed her softly, and guided them aboard the States-bound ferry, she grinned, clutching her charlatan for dear life.

"I love you, Grace," he whispered, arm tightening about her waist.

The words were spoken with the clarity of someone who had known the truth for over a decade. She leaned her head against his shoulder, breathed the scent of pine, sage, and snake oil until it consumed her.

Glancing up at him, she gave herself wholly over. "And I you."

Grace had not been raised a fool.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Alias Grace and couldn't let that ending alone. So here's another!


End file.
